6 New Weapons That Are Making War Look Like a Cartoon

Let's face it: If you told Genghis Khan or Alexander the Great that current wars are fought using giant metallic birds that poop explosives all over people, they'd think you were shitting them. Then they'd probably cut your face off and feed it to their dogs, just because.

Likewise, when we see the prototypes that weapons designers are testing, we realize the battlefield of the future will be utterly insane.

#6. Blob Bot

So imagine you're on the battlefield of the future. You're holed up inside a bombed-out building, your future-rifle aimed out a busted window. The door behind you is closed and braced securely.

Your jawline is suitably magnificent.

But slowly, silently, something comes oozing under the door. And that something is a slimy robot.

The Blob Bot, which is hilarious to say out loud repeatedly, is a real prototype robot made out of a slimy, almost liquid substance and is actually capable of oozing around and changing shape by itself. It is impossible to read that description and not be reminded of this guy:

But sadly, the Blob Bot looks like this:

Imagine that expanding rapidly in the anus of an insurgent.

We're, uh, assuming the final product won't need that huge bundle of cables trailing behind it everywhere. But that's just its initial state, right? It probably looks a lot more menacing when fully deployed ...

OK, so it's kind of a sticky, partially inflated soccer ball.

The Blob Bot is defined as a "chemical robot" (we're mildly offended that they'd use the R word so liberally here), and it moves thanks to a process called "jamming," basically filling its empty areas with air and letting it out as necessary to control the shape. You can watch it in action here:

Yes, military technology has advanced to a point where we have been able to replicate the flopping movements of a dying fish. Granted, the Blob Bot is still very early in development, but when it's finished, its DARPA-sponsored creators hope it will be able to"squeeze through tiny cracks in pursuit of its target" and then ... spy on it with tiny cameras? Explode into a mass of goo? Sneak into sandwiches and hope its target chokes on it? We don't really know, because they never say what exactly their goal here is. All we know is it sounds creepy as hell.

Build weapons first, ask questions later.

#5. Kitty Corner Shot

So you make it out of the building and are now walking through an urban war zone, gunshots echoing in the distance. You reach a corner leading into an alley. Being the cautious soldier that you are, you hunker down, ready for anything that might spring out. You see movement and take aim ...

Whew, it's just a cat. You let down your guard. Wait ... why isn't it moving? Why does it have that dead look in its eyes? And then you hear a BANG. You have been killed by the Kitty Corner Shot.

Oh, it may look like a state-of-the-art gun with a stuffed cat stuck to the end of it, but ... well, that's what it is.

Finally, we have the technology to make this possible.

The trick is that the front part of the gun bends sideways, with a sighting system that doesn't require you to lean out with it. So if you're shooting from behind a corner, all the enemy sees is a cat. An innocent, dead-eyed, freakishly long-legged, sometimes floating-above-the-ground cat. As ridiculous as this sounds, the logic behind it is pretty solid -- when you're in the battlefield, one second can make the difference between life and death. The split second your enemy spends looking at that cat doll, wondering what the holy fuck is going on, can make that difference.

We know what you're thinking: By that logic, you could strap a Joan Rivers mask to the front of the gun, and it would still get the enemy's attention. This is true, but you also need to use something that the other soldier won't instinctively want to open fire on.

DROP THE HAMMER!

And if you think no soldier would carry a weapon like this for fear of looking like a pansy -- well, the kitty corner shot was actually created by the Israeli Special Forces during one of their operations (according to this segment on future weapons by the Discovery Channel). These are the same guys who make The Expendables look like The Golden Girls.

If you look into his eyes for a few seconds, you will feel a little pee coming out.

Also, this thing is actually pretty creepy when you consider that every time you shoot it, part of the cat's face gets blown off, disfiguring it beyond recognition.

The genius of this weapon is that there is no way to adapt to it. You can't just go around blowing away every kitten that comes along. Just look at this adorable little guy ...

Too late. You're dead.

#4. EATR Robot

You lie wounded on the battlefield of the future, having been shot repeatedly by a stuffed kitten. You wait for a medic to come get you, but instead, a robot rolls up. Hey! Maybe the robot will help!

"EATR Robot" stands for Energetically Autonomous Tactical Robot ... Robot. It also stands for a machine that literally eats people. So those initials are a really big coincidence, when you think about it.

The EATR's steam engine is specially designed so that the machine's claw can grab a piece of biomatter (like, say, you) and throw it into the burner to be used as fuel. In other words, this is a machine fueled by death, and it really exists. It also looks like a giant Swiss army knife.

This is the lamest damned- HOLY SHIT IT HAS A CHAINSAW!

The idea is to use these guys to do long-term reconnaissance in enemy territory, because apparently satellites suck at doing that (for one thing, their method doesn't involve burning people to death). Since refueling can become a bit of problem for the EATR when there's no delicious human flesh within reachable distance, it can also feed itself by ripping off tree branches and bushes. Since they don't provide much energy, you can expect to see trails of destroyed bushes and trees that lead right to an energy-drained EATR.

Or maybe it's just playing dead so it can grab you by surprise.

WALL-E doesn't look so friendly now, does he?

These guys are run purely by AI, which is a great idea because how could that possibly go wrong? In a stroke of genius, the military also decided to equip them with DARPA's SELF program, which enables these man-eating self-thinking robots to replicate themselves by building their own copies. The SELF program also means they can make any hardware and software upgrades they deem necessary, like for example if they decide that decorating their hulls with severed human heads would be a good idea.

So if you were wondering what our enemies will look like in the wars of the future, there's a very possible answer right here: